


when I get done

by smartlike



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, post episode 8.04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 09:56:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18808822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smartlike/pseuds/smartlike
Summary: He should have had plenty of time to ready himself before Brienne turned to look at him there in the woods and yet her face still came as a shock. Her bruises had faded since he saw her last, winter blues to a mottled greenish-yellow but she looked nothing like spring. He waited for her to speak, but she did not. At the clearing where his horse was grazing, he waited for her to join him by the fire, but she did not. He did not wait for her to touch him and she did not.





	when I get done

**Author's Note:**

> Getting this so very under the wire before we probably find out what Jaime's actually going to do. I'm sure it will make me sad, so I am holding on to this version for a few minutes.

It was a gift, of course. Sansa staring straight at Brienne, her words sharp but kind. “You should go South. There will be no more battles in Winterfell, but there is another Stark you have sworn to protect."

Arya needed no one's protection and even still she was with Clegane. This was Sansa's gift to Brienne, a reward perhaps for all she had done or simply something Sansa wanted to offer for no reason at all. It was a gift and Sansa would not abandon Brienne if she accepted. And yet. 

"My lady, Arya does not need me to watch over her. The Night King is proof enough of that."

Sansa's smile was always sad now. "You are honorable as ever, Ser Brienne. I know you would never leave me vulnerable, but King's Landing is where you are needed."

She was not talking about Arya and Brienne's eyes closed for a moment. Since Brienne vouched for Jaime on his arrival, Sansa had watched them closely. When Brienne had approached to ask that Jaime be allowed to stay here when the armies went South, Sansa had already known. She had extended him the invitation before Brienne spoke and upon returning to her room, she discovered Jaime’s things had been moved in while she was gone. After Jaime left, when Brienne had finally composed herself and spent the morning training in the yard. She had not spoken to Sansa, but when Brienne returned to the room that morning, the sheets were fresh and the few items he had left behind were gone. Sansa knew what was in Brienne’s heart perhaps sooner and more clearly than Brienne herself had.

"Brienne," Sansa's voice was barely a whisper and Brienne could feel tears starting, but she blinked them away and stared steady at her Lady. 

Sansa sighed. "I would not ask you any service that would bring you dishonor, Ser, I have sworn it.” Brienne nodded when Sansa paused. “And so if I am asking you to go to King's Landing and protect Arya and," she paused again, seeming to consider her words before she continued, “-any other hero of the Battle against the Dead who requires our assistance, it is because there is honor in that."

Under her armor, Brienne's battle injuries were healing, but Sansa's words felt like fresh sword blows. "Lady Sansa, I would not leave you unprotected.” She knew her resolve was weakening, but she was afraid of giving in again.

Sansa glanced behind them at the people working in the courtyard of Winterfell. "I am safe. No one here would hurt me, they are all loyal."

Sansa was not foolishly trusting; Brienne knew she was right. The castle was full of people who would see Sansa safely ruling the North while their King was away. Arya did not need protection but neither did Sansa and fear aside, Brienne ached to be on her way to Kings Landing, had to admit she would have left the morning Jaime did if not for her duty here. So she once again let herself do what she knew would likely end in pain.

"As you wish, my lady." Brienne did not smile as she accepted the gift. "I will go to Kings Landing and I will ensure your sister is safe and if there is any way I can protect those who left here for the War, I will do so."

"Brienne, I trust that you will." Sansa reached out and clutched Brienne's hand and Brienne squeezed back, a swell of love for all the Stark women she had served. 

"Thank you.” She paused and then, "You do not think me a fool then? To want to go to-" Brienne forced herself to speak plainly, unwilling to sully Sansa's gesture with a lie, "-him?"

Sansa hesitated but did not release Brienne's hand. "Love is not what I once believed it to be, it may not be something I ever believe in again. I certainly have no love for your Kingslayer, but he kept his oath to my mother and to you. I could never think you a fool, so if you think he's worth saving, then you should go."

Brienne nodded, hoped Sansa was right even if Brienne no longer had full faith in her own judgement. She could still be wrong. It was possible Jaime was right and she was seeing honor and worth where there never was any. No, not that, exactly. Brienne was sure Jaime once had honor, her fear was that perhaps there was none left - he had spent it all on the Mad King and the rest followed Cersei into madness.

Sansa pulled Brienne into an embrace, their joined hands between them. "But Ser Brienne, swear to me you will do everything in your power to return to Winterfell after your duty is done. I expect I will need protection again eventually."

“Of course I swear it." Sansa had lost so many people and Brienne would not purposefully add to the weight of her sadness and she had seen the icy stares between her lady and the Queen. She would return.

Sansa's smile remained sad as she moved to go into the castle. "Your horse is already saddled, you should leave soon and cover as much ground as you can." She turned and walked inside and she did not look back.

**  
For days, Jaime rode through the winter, steadily moving towards somewhere he wasn’t sure he wanted to go, somewhere likely no one wanted to go. 

Each night he stopped to rest, at first only a few hours, but then longer as his horse tired and he drew ever closer to the culmination of the choice he had made and the next one he would have to make. He had completed the journey from King’s Landing in less than a fortnight, rushing to keep his word to Brienne, rushing away from the sour taste at the back of his throat when he realized Cersei’s latest betrayal. It was an impossible choice but the image of the dead man falling to the Hound had been there to drown out even the most mixed emotions and push him forward to an honorable death, finally. But instead he had lived through the defeat of the dead, time was reset, and he was back on the Kingsroad, the story he’d told Brienne of all his worst choices echoing in his memory.

Each day he rode on through the cold, pushing himself and his horse to exhaustion. The air was thin and cold and breathing was pain, but he welcomed the pain, the excuse to think only of moving forward, focused on the physical requirements of the journey instead of everything else he could be thinking. The horse moving beneath him was a constant rhythm that his body matched, on toward the destination until he couldn’t catch his breath anymore and the horse was panting and close to refusing to go forward.

Each night they tired faster and he stopped a little earlier than the night before. He rested and ate and stared into the fire. He saw in the flames the gold of Tommen's hair, Myrcella's dress, Joffrey's shroud. In the smoke that rose into the darkness he saw Brienne’s shadow darting around him, fighting the army of the dead on the walls of Winterfell. There was nothing but death in his thoughts. When he could barely keep his eyes open, he would press his body to the ground by the fire, tense his muscles against the cold that seeped through even with his cloak wrapped over him and try not to think about where he had come from or where he was going and the women he had disappointed on either end. He always failed, to no one’s surprise, and every night he followed the same questions and the same memories around in his head until he was sure he had made a decision about the future. 

Each day he woke, holding that decision close, but it never lasted. The first day, awake before dawn with a plan for escape for Cersei and their child, the next he woke to weak morning light determined he would kill his sister and then the next with the sun almost visible on the horizon plotting again to save her from herself. Over and over and by the end of a week, the repetition was as familiar as that of the horse under him. By then what he imagined he was planning when he left Winterfell he could no longer remember. The seventh morning he lingered over his first meal until dawn broke, then stood and tossed handfuls of snow over the fire and mounted again, leaving the smoke rising behind him.

**

Three days hard riding, stopping only for a few hours sleep each night and at dawn on the fourth day Brienne saw smoke from a fire ahead. She dismounted and tied her horse around a tree, kicking aside a patch of snow so the animal could graze. Looking around she saw a small rise to her left and climbed to the top, careful to stay behind the trees and out of sight. 

Below her in the dim light, Jaime’s golden head was bent over the fire, one hand hovering, perhaps seeking warmth. She shivered and pulled her furs tighter around her. She watched him as he stared at the fire, eating slowly. The snow fell around him and Brienne could see the light flickering off drops as they melted on his cheeks. She remembered what his skin felt like against her fingertips as she’d begged him to stay in Winterfell.

She watched a moment longer and then descended back to her horse. She did not make a fire, just pulled out some food from her saddle bag and ate leaning against the tree, watching the smoke on the horizon. She was surprised to catch him so soon. She had not expected Jaime to make camp at night and thought he may have already beaten her to the capital. She kept a careful watch, fighting her body’s need for rest and after some time, the smoke disappeared.

Gathering her things and getting back on her horse, she rode slowly, just off the road, not close enough to see Jaime ahead but sure that he was still there. She followed him like this all day until there was more smoke just before dusk. They were only two days ride from Kings Landing now and her horse was slowing. She should stop for the night but she couldn’t expect Jaime to stop two nights in a row, surely he would ride overnight to hasten his journey home, so she waited again. She set her horse to graze but still did not make a fire of her own. And again when the smoke disappeared, she remounted and rode on, pushing through the horse's slight resistance.

Just a league ahead, she heard a cough from behind her and froze. 

“My horse needs to stop for the night, Ser Brienne.” Brienne did not turn to look at Jaime on the ground below. “I thought I should flush out whoever was following me before they killed me in my sleep, though I am sorry to deny you the chance. You’ve certainly earned it.”

The words were reminiscent of something Jaime would have said with humor, before, but his voice was serious. He said nothing else and after a few long minutes, she turned her head. She did not speak, just nodded and dismounted, following him back to a clearing hidden well enough off the road that she had gone right past. She saw where the fire had been and watched, holding the horse’s reins loosely as he added fresh dry wood and re-lit the fire. It was impressive how much he could do with his one hand, she thought, and then steeled herself from following that thought through to her memories of their nights together in Winterfell. He glanced up at her occasionally, but she avoided his eyes and finally stopped watching him, moving to tend to the horse and find a place to rest away from where he sat even though, or likely because, that was where she wanted to be.

**  
When Jaime had realized she was following him, he thought about riding faster, thought about pulling off the road and letting her get ahead, thought about taking another path. In the end, he didn’t do any of those things and he blamed it on his horse because telling lies to himself was always the easy choice.

He should have had plenty of time to ready himself before Brienne turned to look at him there in the woods and yet her face still came as a shock. Her bruises had faded since he saw her last, winter blues to a mottled greenish-yellow but she looked nothing like spring. He waited for her to speak, but she did not. At the clearing where his horse was grazing, he waited for her to join him by the fire, but she did not. He did not wait for her to touch him and she did not. 

Eventually she stepped back from her horse and they separately went through the motions of settling down for the night. In his head, he heard the echo of taunts from another lifetime and the press of manacles against his wrists. Brienne shook her head at his offer of food, pulled some provisions from her pack and they ate in silence. When he finished, he stayed by the fire, cursed the winter as he lay on the cold ground and closed his eyes. He heard Brienne moving around but he did not open his eyes to see what she was doing.

He slept fitfully, choked by dreams or memories or visions of some future yet to be. Once, when he woke, he saw Brienne leaning against a tree in the moonlight, Oathkeeper across her lap. She stared carefully just past where he lay.

"You can sleep, my-" Jaime stopped, closed his eyes. "I'm not leaving before dawn.”

Brienne just made a quiet huff of breath and continued her watch. Jaime wanted to explain that he'd left women he loved twice already and he didn't have the strength to do it again. Instead he closed his eyes in hopes of a few more hours rest. 

He heard her whisper moments later, "I would follow" and he remembered her hands clutching his face, felt them claw at his cheeks and draw blood even though he was fairly certain she had not hurt him. Eventually he slept again, dreamed of eyes filled with fear and disappointment, blue eyes and green eyes, one pair crying and the other dry, neither forgiving.

**

Brienne’s eyes drooped and her head was nodding forward when Jaime’s body shuffled under his cloak. She sat up straight against the tree and watched as he stretched, sat up, and blinked in her direction as if surprised she was still there. Brienne isn’t sure where else she would have gone.

He stood and went into the woods, presumably to piss and Brienne took the opportunity to do the same. She returned first and approached the dying fire, opening her palms to the warmth. She knew when Jaime rejoined her but he didn’t come close.

“Why are you here?” 

Brienne didn’t answer and something in the fire popped, a last bit of kindling caught. She waited until he sighed and then until she heard him moving around behind her, preparing the horse. Eventually she stood and turned to look at him. He was shaking his cloak out, dirt and snow falling to the ground. She opened her mouth to explain, Sansa’s gift and how he should abandon this fool’s mission, leave his sister to the end she had made herself, how it didn’t matter if he stayed with Brienne as long as he lived. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out and by the time he finished with his cloak and looked at her, her lips were pressed into a tight line again.

He shrugged and there was almost a joke in it, she could almost see the insufferable way he carried himself from cruel joke to flippant remark and back again, never settling long enough to be serious, but then his face fell back into the mask she remembered from his final speech at Winterfell and he stepped towards his horse. 

He mounted and looked over his shoulder. “I’m leaving now. I wish you would go back to Lady Stark.” But he waited for her to throw snow on the fire and mount to follow him before heading back to the Kingsroad.

They rode half a day in silence, Brienne just behind Jaime, watching him rise and fall with the pace of his horse. The snow was lighter than the day before, but there were still flakes on her eyelashes and melting down the neck of her armor.

Just past noon, Jaime let her catch up and when she did asked, "Do you believe in prophecy?" 

Brienne said nothing until Jaime looked over at her and raised one eyebrow. She frowned. "I don't know," she finally said, the first thing she'd said in days. 

Jaime's other eyebrow joined the first. "I can't really see you going in for mystics and magic.”

She scoffed. He had asked the question but thought he already knew the answer. As usual. She spoke louder this time and Jaime looked startled at the sound. "Before, no. But now." Brienne shrugged. "After all that happened, it seems foolish to dismiss anything.”

**

They reached the edge of the city before nightfall. Brienne pointed to a hill to the west and Jaime nodded, following her now to the top. They could see Jon Snow’s armies lined up outside the city, the shadow of a dragon as it soared over the city, one plume of flame lighting something on fire within the walls. It didn’t look as though a battle had broken out from the siege and Jaime was gripped by a foolish hope. 

“Ser Jaime.” 

At the sound of Brienne’s voice, at the sound of his name from her lips, the hope vanished. She lifted her arm, pointing to a narrow path towards the city walls that looked like a dead end and was clearly unimportant and unguarded. He had told her about the entrance to the tunnels and she had remembered. He nodded and she pulled the horse around. Jamie watched her move ahead of him, remembered her body hesitating in space above his and he watched the fire in the city ahead, ashes falling with the snow, the imagined taste of Cersei's oiled skin at the back of his throat. 

By the time they made it to the wall where he knew there was a tunnel entrance, it was fully dark. He dismounted and tied his horse in a clump of trees. He wouldn’t need the mount again, but any chance of escape for Brienne was worth the effort. Along the final miles he had tried to find a way to make her tell him why she was there - if it was a punishment or a rescue or just a funeral rite. But the words wouldn't come and instead he said again in different words, “I wish you would not follow me.”

Brienne shook her head, not so much in answer as in exasperation, and tied her horse with his. He waited a moment, but finally let it go and turned to lead them into the tunnels below the city and to the exit into the Red Keep where he didn’t know what he hoped he would find, let alone what he would actually find.

They moved slowly in the dark, the same tunnels under the city he had once searched for pyromancers and casks of wildfire with the certainty of youth and honor. He pushed forward now with no sense of mission, no belief in himself, just the sound of Brienne's breathing in the dark next to him. Her breath, barely audible here under King's Landing, had been a stacatto frenzy under the furs at Winterfell and a steady anchor through a fever on the back of a horse - now each breath took him through the past and back again. He stopped where he knew there was a door, turned toward her breath.

He put his hand on her shoulder and she didn't stiffen, didn't move away, and he loathed every choice he ever made. "I have to go alone.”

Brienne didn't beg this time, didn't tell him he was a good man, and he couldn't see her face but he hoped she wasn't crying for him either. Finally this time he knew she wouldn’t follow him.

"Do you know the way back?" Jaime knew she did, trusted she could follow his path.

She didn't answer, instead asked, "Do you know what you'll do?" Her voice was even and solid.

Jaime didn't know. Days of riding, days of dreaming and turning his memories over and over until they were worn smooth like river rocks, days of possible endings and he still didn't know. He knew he had to be with Cersei because the world had made her cruel and he never managed to stop it, wasn't sure he ever even tried, and in turn she and the world had made him useless. There was no choice for them but to be together at the end. He could not say this to Brienne, he could not press her bruises because the only bits of honor he had left lived somewhere in her.

So again, he was useless and he shook his head, in the dark where she would not see it, and asked, "Do you?" It was not fair, but he hoped she might tell him.

"After all that happened, it seems foolish to dismiss anything." He wished for Tyrion to explain if it was a joke. She stepped away, leaving nothing under his hand. "I hope you find what you need.”

It was the best he could have hoped for and he breathed deeply. "Ser Brienne, it has been my honor to fight for you. And to love you." It was probably a cruel thing to say, but it was one of only two things he believed true and there was no point in avoiding her pain after everything.

The door closed behind him and he listened for her retreat, but it didn't come. He rested his hand against the closed door, pictured her doing the same on the other side and it was almost enough to stop him, but only almost. If he were to survive what came next, it was possible she would be there waiting for him. He held on to that dream knowing he would never know the truth of it. He tapped the door once and turned, headed to find Cersei, to learn what Brienne surely already knew he was going to do. If the sound of an answering tap echoed in the tunnel behind him, it came only after he was there to hear it.

**

Brienne leaned against the door, listening to Jaime on the other side. His solid tap and then his retreating footsteps, shaking with just one quiet sob when she could no longer hear him. She waited there, time passing in the silence until it could have been ten minutes or ten years since he stepped through the door. 

She had not expected to stop him, had no reason to believe that her mute presence on the road could have prevented him from returning to his sister when her words in the cold morning at Winterfell hadn’t. She wasn’t going with him to protect him if there was a fight or to put his life at risk in an otherwise peaceful reunion. She had been there behind and beside him, had helped him navigate his way safely into Kings Landing past the Northern army and the Queen’s forces. That was all she could have done. There was no reason she had come into these tunnels, no reason she was pressed against the vaguely damp wooden door in the bowels of a palace she hated with all her heart. No reason to keep a vigil here for a ruined man, so she supposed it was for herself that she stayed, a memorial for something she had never planned to have and that would leave her with scars worse than any battle.

Finally, she wiped her eyes and stood straight again, retraced their steps to the exit and found her horse. There was a full moon and stars above and fires still lighting the sky. She thought it might almost be morning. She tied Jaime’s horse to hers and looked around, then set out to make her way to the camps outside the wall, Stark banners mixed with Dragon sigils, the sounds of occasional arrows raining down on them. She thought about Jaime’s question of prophecy, wondered what whispered fate he thought set his path. Before she reached the camps, just outside the gates, she saw a familiar shape on horseback ahead.

“Clegane,” Brienne called, just loud enough to be heard and no louder. The Hound's shoulders tensed and Brienne saw his hand on the pommel of his sword. He didn’t let go when he turned and saw it was her. “Where’s Arya?"

“They killed her.” Brienne’s stomach dropped and she gasped. The moon fell on only half his face, his scars hidden in darkness. The Hound tipped his head back to the city gate he seemed to have come from and Brienne realized only now that it was standing open. “You can tell your King in the North that they can take the city now, that Lannister bitch is dead now too. Couldn’t save the girl, but I finished what she started. It’s what she wanted, you know - she didn’t expect to go home again.”

Brienne knew it was true, but pain raced through her and she was crying again. They stared at one another in silence and finally Brienne asked, “You aren’t going to the camp?”

Clegane laughed, dark and shallow. “I stopped fighting for kings and queens a long time ago.” He turned his horse towards the tree line.

“Clegane, wait-“ Brienne felt ashamed but she had to know. “Did you see. Was Ser-“

The Hound didn’t turn back. “Aye, the Kingslayer was there. Fool tried to save her.”

Brienne inhaled sharply. 

“But Cersei killed her anyway. Couldn’t do much one-handed against my brother.”

Brienne blinked away fresh tears and narrowed her eyes. Before she could be sure she’d understood him, the Hound was gone, his horse’s footfalls echoing in her ear. Brienne stood still outside the gates until suddenly people started streaming out, rushing towards the army or from the dragon fire or from some other unknown threat. On horseback, Brienne could see over the crowd, watched as soldiers she recognized pressed their way into the city against the people of King’s Landing. And then, illuminated in the flames, light flickering off his golden hand and what was clearly blood streaked across his face, she saw him.

“Jaime,” she shouted and he turned, stared up at her as she rode toward him. “Make way,” she shouted at the people on foot and the soldiers on horses. He stood completely still inside the gate, staring at her like she was a vision or a ghost. She pulled the horses up sharply in front of him. “Jaime.”

“Brienne?” He was panting and there was a gash in his shoulder, fabric from his torn shirt sticking in the drying blood at the edges. He looked like he would collapse at any minute. “Why are— I, how?” He closed his eyes and Brienne jumped down to stop him fainting. She wrapped her arm around his upper arm.

“I saw Clegane outside the gate.”

Jaime’s eyes closed and he shuddered under her hand. “She’s dead. Brienne, I couldn’t save her.”

“I know, Jaime.” Brienne shook him lightly, willed him to open his eyes and look at her.

“No, Brienne. Arya, I couldn’t save Arya. Cersei killed her.” Jaime finally opened his eyes but he wouldn’t look at her and Brienne’s heart broke again. “I couldn’t stop her. I never could.”

Brienne tilted her head down, waited until he finally glanced at her. “But you tried.”

Jaime nodded, understanding breaking through and Brienne nodded back. “I tried.”

Jaime’s legs finally gave out and he fell against her, shaking. She closed her arms around him and he reached up and pressed his good hand to her face and they stayed there until Jaime could finally stand again, chaos churning around them, mourning together that would last for some time to come, but maybe eventually they could accept that everything they had lost finally did not include one another. When Jaime seemed he could walk, they did - hands clasped, they led the horses out of the city again as the early morning light replaced the stars above them, no path laid out before them anymore.


End file.
